Page 44 - The Thief's Journal

The Thief's Journal
We crossed the border with little money, for the old fellow had been suspicious, and we came to Katowice. We founds Michaelis' friends, but we were arrested by the police the second day for trafficking in counterfeit money. We stayed in prison, he for three months and I for two. Here there occurred an event which has to do with my moral life. I loved Michaelis. Taking up a collection while the boys sang was not humiliating. Central Europe is used to such troupes of young men, and all our gestures were innocent because of their youthfulness and gaiety. I could love Michaelis tenderly, without feeling ashamed, and could tell him so. We had our luxurious hours at night, in secret, at his lover's home. Before being jailed, we lived together for a month at the Katowice police station. Each of us had a cell, but in the morning, before the offices were open, two policemen would come to get us; we had to empty the latrines and wash the tiles. The only moment we could see each other was under the sign of shame, for the policemen were taking revenge on the Frenchman's and the Czech's elegance. They would wake us up early in the morning to empty the shit can. We would go down five flights. The stairway was steep. At every step a little wave of urine wet my hand and that of Michaelis, whom the policemen made me call Andritch. We would have liked to smile so as to make light of these moments, but the odor forced us to hold our noses, and fatigue contracted our features. The difficulty we had in using Italian did not help matters. Gravely, carefully, with solemn slowness, we took down the enormous metal chamber−pot into which, a whole night long, beefy policemen had been relieving themselves of a matter and liquid which at the time had been warm but in the morning was cold. We emptied it into privies in the court and went back upstairs. Had I met Andritch in shame and not given him a radiant image of myself, I could have remained calm as we carried down the jailors' shit, but to reduce his humiliation I stiffened myself to the point of becoming a kind of hieratic sign, a song that was, to him, superb, capable of stirring the humble: a hero. When the pot had been emptied, the policemen threw us a piece of sack−cloth and we washed the floor. We crawled in front of them on our knees in order to rub and mop the flag−stones. They kicked us with the heels of their boots. Michaelis must have understood my suffering. Unable to read his looks or behavior, I was not sure whether he pardoned my fall. One morning I thought of rebelling and spilling the pot on the cops' feet, but I pictured in my imagination what the revenge of those bullies would be— they'll drag me in the piss and shit, I told myself, in the wrath of all their muscles, in their trembling, they'll make me lick it—and I decided that this situation was exceptional, that it had been granted me because no other would have so well fulfilled me.
“This is definitely a rare situation,” I said to myself. “It's exceptional. In the presence of the person I adore and in whose eyes I seemed an angel, here am I being knocked down, biting the dust, turning inside out like a glove and showing exactly the opposite of what I was. Why could I not likewise be this opposite? The love that Michaelis bore me—his admiration, rather—being possible only in the past, I will do without this love.”
This thought hardened my features. I knew that I was returning to the world from which all tenderness is banned, for it is the world of those feelings which are opposed to nobility and beauty. It corresponds in the physical world to the world of meanness. Without seeming to be unaware of this situation, Michaelis bore it lightly. He joked with the guards, he smiled often, his whole face sparkled with innocence. His well−meaningness toward me irritated me. He wanted to spare me drudgery, but I was snappish with him.
In order to thrust him further from me, I needed an excuse. One morning he stooped to pick up a pencil which one of the policemen had dropped. I insulted him on the stairs. He replied that he didn't understand. He wanted to calm me by acting more affectionate; he irritated me.
“You're a coward,” I said. “You're a son of a bitch. The cops are still too good to you. One of these days you'll really lick their boots. Maybe they'll go pay you a visit in your cell and stick their pricks up your ass!”
I hated him for being the witness of my downfall after having seen what a Liberator I could be. My suit had faded; I was dirty, unshaved; my hair was unkempt; I was getting homely and taking on again the hoodlum look that Michaelis didn't like because it was his by nature. Nevertheless, I plunged into shame. I no longer loved my friend. Quite the contrary, this love —the first which I experienced that was protective—was
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